SharksBy: James latona

The first sharks lived over 450 million years ago, and some fossils even date back that far. They are commonly known as the king of the ocean. There is also over 350 shark species that we currently know about, and they live in all parts of our ocean. Very few shark species are known to attack humans. Sharks kill only about twelve people per year. Many species are calm and harmless. Some sharks can grow to be over thirty-five feet long.

Whale sharks are the biggest species of shark. Although most sharks only live about twenty to thirty years, this monster can live up to 100 years old!! Some can even grow to be forty feet in length. As you probably can tell, it takes a lot to feed this guy... he can eat up to fifty pounds per day! But don't worry, he eats mostly plankton. One whale shark can give birth to over 250 shark pups at one time.

Sharks have several rows of teeth, they lose and shed their teeth constantly. They can go through about 35,000 teeth in one lifetime!! Sharks can even grow a new set of teeth in only eight days. Sharks are mostly solo swimmers and hunt for their food alone. They are most active at evening and night time. These creatures come in all shapes and sizes, and play a vital roll in our oceans.

People are sharks deadliest predator. One of the many threats that sharks face in the wild is humans! There is about an average of thirty to fifty shark attacks each year, which about sixty percent of them are in less than six feet of water. This is a tiny number compared to the 11,417 sharks that people kill each HOUR!!! For every person that is killed by sharks, there is two million sharks killed by humans. Surfers are more likely to drown to be killed in a shark attack, and you are more likely to be struck dead by lightning than to be killed by a shark. Sharks can detect blood in the water from over a mile away, and can hear their pray up to 3000 feet away.

Sharks do not have a single bone in their bodies. They have a skeleton made out of strictly cartilage. They can have five or six pairs of gills, and also have a sight line of almost 360 degrees. Some sharks, like the bull shark, can swim in all types of water including fresh water! Once shark pups are born, they swim away from their mothers and have to fend for themselves. They do not have to eat for the first couple of weeks after they are born either!

The great white shark is one of the most commonly known sharks. These monsters really are the queens of the ocean. Like in many other shark species, the females are much bigger than the males. A seventeen foot great white is the biggest fish caught by rod and reel! Also, great whites can travel thousands of miles between feeding grounds and can go months without eating. When they do eat, they eat a lot! They eat twnety times what humans eat in a year, that's over 22,000 lbs a year. A fun fact about great white sharks is that the bite of this shark can produce up to about 4,000 PSI!

Here are some fun facts about sharks... Some sharks will sink if they stop swimming! Thrasher Sharks' tails can be over half their body length. There is a shark in Greenland that has been known to live up to 200 years. The Blunt-nose Six Gill Shark can go as deep as 7,500 feet below sea level. Some sharks can make light through a process called bio-luminescence.

Here is a couple more random facts about sharks for you... The Mako shark is a well known sport fish. The largest known shark ever is the Megalodon, which is now extinct. Twenty to thirty percent of sharks are close to extinction. The blue shark can give birth to 135 shark pups at one time!